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Eared Grebe
Scientific Name:
Podiceps nigrocollis
Type:
Bird
Habitat:
Shallow ponds and wetlands during the breeding season; salt water lakes during migration
Range:
Western North America
Status:
Least Concern (IUCN Red List)
This species is
NATIVE
to the Truckee Meadows.
Identification:
Eared grebes are small diving waterbirds with dramatic breeding season plumage, thin bills, and bright red eyes. With a long black neck and back, Eared grebes sport a fan of wispy golden feathers from just behind their eyes to the back of their head, with a crimson to rust color on their underparts. Eared grebes are quite social, usually traveling in large groups, with dramatic courtship displays of running across the water. During the rest of the year, Eared grebes are a rather bland by comparison, just gray, black and white, blending in with their environment and other waterbirds.1 Eared grebes are smaller than mallards at less than 14 inches in length, weighing less than 26 ounces, with a wingspan of 20.5 to 21.6 inches.
Fast Facts:
Eared grebes only migrate at night, in the fall they journey from their freshwater ponds to either Mono Lake California or Great Salt Lake Utah before heading to their winter home.
Not only do Eared grebes molt, and go from dazzling to somewhat drab, they also go through a physical metamorphosis, an Incredible Hulk-like transformation! Once the Eared grebes arrive at their inland salt lakes, they feast on brine shrimp and alkali flies until their digestive tract grows profoundly while their flight muscles (pectorals) shrink to the point they can no longer fly.1 After gorging, they then stop eating, their flight muscles grow back and their digestive organs shrink to nearly 25% of their peak size, and then they head to their winter home!1 Eared grebes then repeat this transformation of eating, changing, fasting and changing back in the spring as they migrate back north.
Sources:
In The Shadow of Fox Peak. An Ethnography of the Cattail-Eater Northern Paiute People of Stillwater Marsh. Catherine S. Fowler Cultural Resource Series Number 5 US Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service Region 1 Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge 1992
Contributor(s):
Regina Hockett (research & content)
Kevin Lynch (edits & page design)